According to SamMobile, Samsung UK’s website is only listing the S6 Edge as being available in 64GB and 128GB – with no 32GB (let alone 16GB) versions.

The website lists the regular S6 being available in 32, 64 or 128GB.

The speculation is that this could be to ensure the S6 Edge retails for a significantly higher price – perhaps to make the device seem like an elite thing to own. Or, of course, it could simply be a typo on the website.

Samsung is yet to confirm basically anything about the release of the device, so we’ll have to keep you posted.

Smartwatch maker Pebble has just announced a new version of its Pebble Time watch – only a week or so after announcing Pebble Time itself. The Pebble Time Steel is just like the Pebble Steel was to the original Pebble – a classier version, for people who want to look like a slick business type, whilst still getting Facebook notifications on their wrist.

Don’t worry if you’ve already Kickstarted Pebble Time – apparently you’ll still get the opportunity to upgrade, whilst retaining your spot in the virtual queue.

Pebble Time adds some exciting new features to the affordable smartwatch: A colour screen, a new timeline interface and even a microphone for interacting with your phone through voice.

Perhaps most exciting is the less glamorous announcement: That both Time and Time Steel will include a new port on the back of the watch for plugging in custom straps which could contain sensors. This means that with the right strap, you could conceivably monitor your heart rate, track your GPS or even charge your Pebble battery. But it will presumably be up to third parties to come up with these.

Pebble Time Steel looks set to be $250 (about £160) if you Kickstart it, or $299 (about £200) if you buy it at retail.

]]>http://www.techdigest.tv/2015/03/pebble-time-steel-announced-at-mobile-world-congress.html/feed0Now you can get Games with Gold Xbox One games on Xbox 360http://www.techdigest.tv/2015/03/now-you-can-get-games-with-gold-xbox-one-games-on-xbox-360.html
http://www.techdigest.tv/2015/03/now-you-can-get-games-with-gold-xbox-one-games-on-xbox-360.html#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 10:39:01 +0000http://www.techdigest.tv/?p=188378Read More]]>

If you’re a 360 owner who still hasn’t upgraded to an Xbox One, then you might be worried about missing out on all of the free “Games with Gold” games for Xbox One. The good news is that this is that Microsoft has finally done something about it.

According to a short clip posted by Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb, you can down use your 360 to choose to ‘buy’ Xbox One games. Obviously you’ll still need an Xbox One to play the games, but this will at least add the games to your Xbox account – so when you do finally get a One, you can download all of the titles you’ve reserved for free.

Over at MWC, Blackberry has just announced a new handset. Blackberry Leap is a sleek attempt at doing a fully touchscreen phone again. It has a 5″ display, 2800mAh battery and runs the Blackberry 10 OS. Whether it will make an impact remains to be seen, though could conceivably be attractive to business users who are more worried about security than having the latest apps.

Also announce is the below – a good old-fashioned phone with a slide-out keyboard and (apparently) a curved screen.

Given that Blackberry’s previous most recent phones were the Classic with full hardware keyboard, and now we’re back in the transitional era to touchscreen phones… I guess it is time to party like its 2007. Again.

The above image has surfaced on social media this morning, purporting to show an Iron Man special edition of the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge – which would be the same phone, but with a lovely red and gold finish.

Of course, we can’t verify that this is real – it could just be a fan photoshop or a hoax – but such a move would make sense as Samsung has a product placement deal in the forthcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron.

We’ll let you know if Samsung says anything official.

]]>http://www.techdigest.tv/2015/03/is-there-a-samsung-galaxy-s6-iron-man-edition-on-the-way.html/feed0WATCH: Hands on with the Asus ZenFone 2http://www.techdigest.tv/2015/03/watch-hands-on-with-the-asus-zenfone-2.html
http://www.techdigest.tv/2015/03/watch-hands-on-with-the-asus-zenfone-2.html#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 08:36:23 +0000http://www.techdigest.tv/?p=188369Holly from ShinyShiny is over in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress, and got a chance to play with the new Asus ZenFone 2. Here’s what she thinks…

A new type of smart lightswitch has launched on Indiegogo, which does away with the difficulty of messing with your home’s wiring.

The way Switchmate works is by using magnets – simply snap it on to your lightswitch and it’ll stick with magnets. The existing switch is then switched off and on using a mechanical switch on the back of the device.

It can be controlled using either bluetooth or a switch on the wall – and a hub will also be available for controlling switches when you’re away from home.

At the moment there is a bit of a way to go, so it will be interesting to see if it makes its goal.

]]>http://www.techdigest.tv/2015/03/watch-switchmate-aims-to-make-internet-connected-lightswitches-even-easier.html/feed0Has Samsung just beaten Apple at mobile payments?http://www.techdigest.tv/2015/03/has-samsung-just-beaten-apple-at-mobile-payments.html
http://www.techdigest.tv/2015/03/has-samsung-just-beaten-apple-at-mobile-payments.html#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 14:27:17 +0000http://www.techdigest.tv/?p=188364Read More]]>One of the most interesting new announcements to come out of Samsung’s Mobile World Congress presentation yesterday was the announcement of “Samsung Pay” – a service that will let you pay for stuff with your phone, to compete primarily with Apple Pay.

Apple Pay launched at the end of last year in the US, and is set to launch later this year in the UK – but whilst clearly being a very slick technology, has had limited uptake. The reason is that it uses NFC payments, which require shops (or “merchants”, in credit card speak) to have NFC reading payment terminals. Whilst this is increasingly common, it isn’t quite ubiquitous yet.

Samsung Pay, meanwhile uses a new technology to work with something much older – the magnetic stripe. The stripe, and magnetic stripe readers are still found all over the world – as compatibility reasons mean that stripes are still found on chip & pin readers, and even NFC readers.

The Galaxy S6 has a special “MST” chip built into it, which essentially tricks the card reader into thinking there’s a credit card with a magnetic stripe in the machine – by manipulating magnetic fields to match what a card would say if it were swiped. So all you have to do is hold your phone to the side of a magnetic stripe reader, and your goods will be paid for.

The only real question is just how much explaining to the shopkeeper you’ll have to do when your payment goes through without a card.

So this gives Samsung an immediate advantage over Apple Pay, in terms of the merchants that support the technology. But this is where things get even more interesting.

One of the big hurdles for Apple Pay so far has been that retailers aren’t very happy with it. The technology marks a big landgrab by Apple for a slice of payment market, and so a number of big American stores have banded together to stop accepting Apple Pay – hoping to force users onto their own rival payment platform instead. The problem for Apple isn’t just that say, Walmart, won’t take Apple Pay – its that it makes the platform less ubiquitous. iPhone owners can pay with their phone… but they should probably take their wallet with them to, just in case the shop won’t take Apple Pay.

Meanwhile, Samsung seems to have subverted this system. By simulating a magnetic stripe, as far as I can tell, there’s no real way that payments from Samsung Pay can be denied – as to the card reader, it is just another magnetic stripe.

Even if there is a way to block Samsung payments like the retailers have done with Apple Pay, Samsung will still ultimately have its advantage in terms of sheer number of merchants.

So despite the iPhone being the juggernaut that it is, could this be one area where Samsung will end up besting Apple? Will it include the technology in future devices like the inevitable Galaxy Note 5 (probably, yes), and will it open up the tech to other manufacturers to make Samsung Pay available on every Android phone? (Probably not).

It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

]]>http://www.techdigest.tv/2015/03/has-samsung-just-beaten-apple-at-mobile-payments.html/feed0Sony announces Xperia Z4 tablet… but no phonehttp://www.techdigest.tv/2015/03/sony-announces-xperia-z4-tablet-but-no-phone.html
http://www.techdigest.tv/2015/03/sony-announces-xperia-z4-tablet-but-no-phone.html#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 11:52:44 +0000http://www.techdigest.tv/?p=188361Read More]]>Sony has today announced the Xperia Z4 tablet, but rather curiously, hasn’t said anything about the expected Z4 phone.

The tablet itself is, like everything else at MWC, pretty unremarkable – its an Android rectangle, and that’s all you really need to know.

Though that said, the company is keen to point out the audio on the device – which has stereo front-facing speakers:

“Sony’s leading audio technologies ensure you never miss a beat. High-Res Audio reproduces high frequency sound in amazing detail for a studio quality experience. DSEE HXTM processing upscales the audio fidelity of tracks to near High-Res Audio quality. Xperia Z4 Tablet supports digital noise cancelling for those times when you need to block out background noise. And for high quality wireless music listening, Sony’s new LDACTM codec transmits data three times more efficiently than Bluetooth.”

The rest of the spec is largely in-line with the rest of the industry. It’s a 10″-er, is powered by a Snapdragon 810 octa-core processor and comes with 32GB of built in storage. The battery will apparently give 17 hours of video playback though – which would be impressive.

It’ll be interesting to see if Sony announces a Z4 phone now.

]]>http://www.techdigest.tv/2015/03/sony-announces-xperia-z4-tablet-but-no-phone.html/feed0Is VR going to be the next big thing?http://www.techdigest.tv/2015/03/is-vr-going-to-be-the-next-big-thing.html
http://www.techdigest.tv/2015/03/is-vr-going-to-be-the-next-big-thing.html#commentsMon, 02 Mar 2015 11:03:42 +0000http://www.techdigest.tv/?p=188358Read More]]>Yesterday at the start of Mobile World Congress, HTC dropped one of the few genuine surprises so far: the Chinese phonemaker is partnering with Valve to build a virtual reality headset.

The move is one that will excite gamers. Not because of HTC – but because Valve, which made its name with Steam and Half Life, could conceivably do some very exciting things. In fact, the whole VR space is currently hugely exciting: The Oculus Rift is still making waves, Microsoft’s HoloLens has captured imaginations with its augmented reality vision, and just on Thursday I tried out Roto, one of the inevitable plethora of accessories to make VR even more immersive.

All of the major tech companies are currently either confirmed to be working on a VR headset – or are strongly rumoured to (in the case of Apple).

But here’s the thing: is VR REALLY going to be the next big thing? I’m not so sure.

We recently saw the killing of Google Glass by Google. Despite the space-age feel of the device, it just didn’t take off – partially because wearing something on your face is weird. VR will have the same problem.

And whilst VR gaming, and VR movies are sure to be exciting, is that really going to be the way we want to consume content in the future? I can’t help but think back to a few years ago when 3D was being positioned as the next must-have feature on TVs – which is now dead in the water.

Why? Well, you have to wear some stupid glasses – and to get the most out of it you have to devote 100% of your attention to what you’re watching. And this is exactly the same problem that VR will have. If you have to strap on an Oculus headset then there’s no more playing on your phone whilst watching TV… and who watches TV like that any more? And god forbid if you ever want to speak to your family or loved ones whilst gaming.

There’s also the inevitable headache. One of the big complaints with 3D was that for many people it caused headaches – and VR technology still risks doing the same, due to the disparity between your eyes seeing movement and your body not moving. Whilst a rotating base like Roto attempts to address this – it is unlikely to fully solve the problem in its first iteration.

Where VR could possibly succeed is in more niche interests. For example, amongst the sort of hardcore gamers who will buy a steering wheel accessory, or amongst industry where people can’t easily use their hands (Microsoft’s HoloLens demo includes someone explaining how to fix a sink – so you can imagine plumbers using them).

But the rest of us? Call me sceptical, but I’m not so sure that we’ll all soon have VR goggles strapped to our faces.